Probably many people would think about something else when they hear "arm chain". Nevertheless it's not the worst terminus to describe a silver chain pierced through the entire upper arm. The biceps muscle had to take up the foreign stuff becoming a real part of my body. One year and one day the right biceps chain was inside me. I did not had too much problems, some minor infection occurred, but most time the flexible metal felt like been inside there since my birth. So I knew I can do it, why should it not work a second time. Even better - healing went relatively (when thinking about the complexity of this project) easy, the muscle tissue cured faster than the connective tissue, the usual place for a piercing inside the body. Probably due to the good blood supply of the muscle, while this soft, flexible connective tissue get little supplied with blood - and so with immune competent cells, with nutrients, needed for growing and so on.
At A Glance Author Stormchaser Contact Stormchaser@bme.anon IAM Stormchaser When A month ago Artist meself Studio athome Location Vienna, Austria And one year is a lot of time. Nor only for healing also for forgetting. In a retrospective view this piercing was really bad pain. The procedure was not easy at all, lot of small, but painful troubles happened. But through the sunglass of one year - one year being happy feeling this chain, it did not feel that bad any more.
So I felt strong enough to do the left arm. At least I learned from the problems during the last years procedure, reformed the end of the needle, so that I can pull a cord through the arm, without tremendously unnecessary stretching due to the thick end of the needle. For some time I also played with the thought to use a professional needle, the same model which helped me doing several brand-new implants. But what will happen if this IV-tubing needle cuts through the muscle? For sure it will hit and cut a lot of blood vessels, probably nerves and so on. So I decided to go back to the old improvised sewing, reformed kit needle. The thick end of this tool was cut off and grinded blunt, the sharp end got a little additional sharpening, and some grooves at the end of the needle should allow to attach a cord, the first object to be pulled through the arm.
After sterilizing the needle, the cord, a longer piece of silver wire, and not to forget the chain with two different antiseptic agents (isopropanolic disinfectant followed by "Octenisept" solution), I did the same with my right upper arm and my hands. Then the procedure was about to begin. A last time squishing the biceps, to control where the nerves and important blood vessels are, a last compare, right arm - left plan. When I found the best entry place, between several surface veins then the hard time begun. Pushing a thick needle through the skin is never pleasure. And it's very uncomfortable when the sharp end is very small, the tiny entry hole (about 0,1mm) has to be stretched to the stretched to the thickest size of the needle (about 2,5mm).
Skin is very tough, really not easy to stretch, so this needs some power, while the sharp end already enters the muscle. A very painful situation, and no break is possible, or the sharp end will slide back, doing unwelcome damage to the muscle. It was a hard and painful jump when the thickest part of the needle slid through the skin. A short break was possible now to get some air, to recover from standing too much pain. The entry worked not too bad, there were nor painful intensity peaks, but all the time the muscle was sensitive - there was distinctively more pain then during the other arm-project. I nice break to do the first documentary photo (Left arm, biceps piercing no. 1 on BME). The next 5 minutes were still painful, but not that worse, the needle found it's way through the muscle not too bad, even when there was all the time more sensitivity as last year (photos 2, 3).
And I found out that it would have been easier to attach the cord before, only with the right arm it was a tricky work to fix it on the needle! Nevertheless, some patience and it worked, again a nice rest from pain. But then the exit was to be done. Stabbing the skin from inside. This stretching was the most painful I ever did, despite the fact leaving of the muscle was easy done. The skin was extremely tough, it was hard to stretch it far enough, to get the thickest part of the needle through, and every millimeter of needle coming out was pure pain. Probably I hit some surface pain receptor (photos 4, 5).
Now I thought the most intense procedure is over. This assumption missed the reality by far. The cord at the end of the needle was only 0,1mm thicker than the needle before, but it increased the friction of metal and skin. So I really had to pull very hard for several times to get this into (photo 6), and than through the arm. More pain for the already angry biceps. A really unwelcome surprise, that this little more friction hurts that much all the way trough the hole. (photo 7).
At least the next step went much more easy. Fixing the cord on a U-bent silver wire was followed by pulling this wire through the arm. Moving the muscle a bit helped greatly to avoid the wire getting caught at bends of the hole. This procedure was not very painful, at least some relief to the extreme pain stress from before. Nevertheless the little flexibility of the wire disturbed my very much when moving the arm (photo 8).
Since I didn't want to run around with a silver wire in my arm there was one step missing. Fixing the chain on the wire (using the still attached cord) was the easy step. I had to do it this more complicated way, since I did not knew if the cord would have been attached on the needle strong enough to pull a chain through. And a too long cord (if I tried to attach the chain instead of the wire) could break or cut into the muscle. But the end of the procedure was near. Now I feared this could be painful again, the rough surface from the chain would not feel too nice while moving through the hole. And it was that bad I feared, the chain went through in jumps, accompanied by a rattling noise and a very uncomfortable feeling. But when it was through, when I bent the arm, let the muscle find the optimal place for the chain, the feeling was great (photo 9, 10).
Still painful but great, when I recognized it found a quite good, comfortable place, already fixed a bit by muscle tissue. The following day the pain was still quite strong, like after being hit hard, like with a big haematom. Pain diminished slowly during the following week, more and more movements became pain-free again. Now, after two weeks healing is gone far. It really begins to feel like a body part, entry and exit holes are doing well, but are not entire stable yet. Connective tissue is healing slowly, the bond chain - tissue is weeks away from achieving the strength of the connection between muscle and chain.
As you can probably think this is a really dangerous piercing. Lots of things can go wrong. If anybody wants to do such a thing, be prepared, lots of things can happen. Infections of deep piercing are more severe then of shallow places. There are a lot of important structures inside the arm. Hit the important never and you will be crippled. Knowledge is more than important. And last but not least it is really pain like hell. Yes it is more painful to pierce 12cm of flesh then 12mm - much more painful. And I do not know if this piercing is possible with any other jewelry than a chain. The highly flexible material allows movements as usual, but what's happening with a stiff jewelry, probably the skin, which is then forced to move with the muscle, will not heal under these conditions. But a chain will stay there forever - mine became real body parts...